Creating the mood you want for living spaces
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The personality of your living spaces enhances the way you feel in them. Cozy bedrooms help you get rest, for example, and lively living rooms are great for families to enjoy each other. In this guide we’ll translate the moods that you want to create in a living space to colour options that you can confidently apply to wall art, paint colour and style. Let’s go…
Start with function
Vibe follows function so begin by understanding the function of your space. You wouldn’t cook in your bedroom or sleep in the kitchen, right? Reasonably, the furniture and objects that you keep in these spaces facilitate your activities there. The mood you create should enhance that.
Now, take note of the activities that you engage in for the space that you’re decorating, and use it to validate your choice of mood to create there.
Pro Tip: The layout of a space, and how objects stored there are organized, contributes to function. This helps to choose the right mood.
Translate mood to colour
Colour is a sensation that stimulates mood. So, to create your desired mood for a space, you’ll need a colour palette. It’s a simple tool to organize colour, and plan its use in a space, so you can create a mood more effectively.
Choose a base colour from the chart below that matches the emotional response you want to create for your space.
Expand into a colour palette
We’ll now use the base colour you selected to generate variations and colour harmonies. This is how mood is created.
Harmonies are colour choices that work well together. Whether their combinations aim to subdue or energize a space is up to you, but harmonies are proven to create a unified feeling there. You don’t even need many colours to create harmony. Generally, sticking to variations of the same colour creates consistency in mood, while only a couple colours that contrast with each other can create more than enough energy for a space.
Because there are millions of colours, and even more choices, use a tool like Dopely or Coolors to find and generate colour harmonies based on your base colour.
Pro Tip: Use wall art and interior styling to amplify or soften the mood in a space. Amplifying makes it more social, while softening the mood makes it more personal.
And that’s it! Armed with a colour palette that’s based on the mood suitable for the function of your living space, you can apply paint colour and choose wall art confidently.
Also consider using your colour palette to copy interior styles that you like, or let your creativity run wild. How you live, or want to feel, is really up to you.